Introduction

About this guide.

This guide will explain everything you need for playing Shaco in summoners Rift as a jungler (till now). I will add topic after topic and try to make this a completed Shaco guide for AP/AD/Hybrid in Summoners Rift (every Lane), TT and Dominion. If you want me to add something you know about Shaco send a mail to [email protected]

About me as a player.

Most of the time, I'm a casual German player and basically that's everything you have to know about me. Shaco was my main but then he became perma-banned and I stopped playing him often. But if not banned I try to pick him myself because I neither want him as an enemy nor in my team cause I see many people failing with this hero.

About Shaco

In my eyes, he is first of all one of the safest heroes in the whole game. No matter what shit happens to you, you can save your ass if you know what you are doing! If Shaco dies it was mainly his fault.

The only thing I can say for sure about his role in the game is that he is a jungler; nearly everything else is your own decision. Even if I don't like this idea, he could be an AP if needed. He fits the role of an initiator, melee carry, support and AP at least somehow, but I mainly play him as an assasin or bruiser because he shines at being one of those.

Skill explenation

I think this is the move that turns Shaco into Shaco. Also, this is the spell which mainly separates Shaco players from great Shaco players. It is a gapcloser that grants you invisibility for 3.5 seconds and 100% critical strike chance with your next hit and it modifies the damage dealt by this crit. Infinity Edge and [mastery=Lethality] maximize the damage, too. One last thing about that skill: Never ever use it for farming or boosting damage on jungle creeps!

The main reason why Shaco is the awsome jungler he is. The Jitb lasts 60 seconds and brings fear to all enemies in the area if they run into it. They will try to attack the last champion who damaged Shaco as their first priority, their second is the last champion Shaco did damage to.

A strong ability to gank and jungle completes his pre 6 set. The passive grants you a great slow and miss chance for neutrals and the active is doing insane damage when ganking. For using the active there are some rules.

Against champions throw your knife only if you can kill or if you don't see any other chance to close the distance. If you have red you can use the active even if you lose a part of your slow but use the damage wisely.

On neutrals use it for the killing blow on Blue, Red, Dragon and Baron, because while fighting them you will need the chance of them missing you. On every other neutral it's just a waste of mana.

Shaco spawns a double of himself which deals 75% of his damage and receives 50% more damage. Not that special? Wrong! I will explain the exact use of every spell in special situations later but let me say two things.

First: While spawning your clone you leave the map for about 0.1 seconds, which means you won't be hit by anything such as Requiem.

Second: This ability won't break your invisibility so you can confuse your enemy if you use it right after Deceive . If done right, an enemy AP will blow all his spells on your clone and for this he won't get a kill but a lot of damage if your clone explodes.

Masteries

For masteries I use basic carry-AD masteries with extended buff durations.

Another option is to spend points on some defensive masteries instead of grabbing Runic Affinity but I never felt like needing more defense in Jungle. It's a matter of choice between longer buffs or more defense/sustain.

Runes

I hope noone will actually need this section because my rune build as shown above is really simple and basic but I will explain my thoughts for newer players.

Flat-AD marks and quintessences grant me a slightly better Jungle clear time and most importantly, they grant me extremely strong ganks in early levels.

Armor seals are for some sustain in Jungle. On top of that, these runes plus your basic armor, plus maybe Madred's Bloodrazor will be everything you need for armor.

My Manaregen/5 glyphs are the only point in this set of runes I would think about swapping. So let me give you some Pro|Con

Pro: Better sustain in Jungle especially if you give the first Blue to your mid.

Con: Could be Flat-AP for even stronger ganks or MR for more tankyness.

As I survived an early invasion by having just enough mana to jump out with my Q, this ended the discussion for me, MP5 forever.

Summoner spells

Smite Your basic spell as you are a jungler. Makes your Jungle and invasions safer and faster -> a must have.

Ignite Additional damage to your strong burst set and additional AP/AD as it is on cooldown. My favourite second spell.

Exhaust Slow and a heavy damage debuff onto your enemy. It depends on your style of playing, your team and the enemy team, but in my opinion it's the second best summoner for Shaco. Notice that it is very easy for Shaco to place this on an enemy AP or carry to lower their damage output.

Ghost Movementspeed is always great, but you will be fast enough when you get your Boots of Mobility and it won't make your ganks much stronger.

Flash You already have a gapcloser/escape like this and your enemy will see the animation if you use it while invisible. A possibility but in my opinion the 3 spells above are much better.

Heal You can have a lot of fun with this using Deceive and healing while invisible. Most enemies wont't realize you have heal. But.....it's no more than a source of fun.

Jungling (Basic)

As the title of this guide promises the main part is "Shaco like Phreak would do it: As a jungler".

Basics

How long you can stay in the jungle and how strong your ganks are both depend on your first items. I prefer Cloth Armor and Health Potion which grant most survivability in the jungle but my ganks are slightly weaker.

Your basic skill for jungling is your Jitb. One of it isn't all that much, but as they last 60 seconds and have just 16 seconds cooldown you can stack them. And because of this you have more time to reach your prefered camp. In most cases you will have to wait till 0:43 to place your first Jitb (0:40 can bug a little and 3 seconds won't make a difference).

The first route you can use is starting at Wraiths and Red.

The first 2 Jitb will be placed where the big wraith spawns. After this place 2 more in front of the red buff. Be careful while placing them, they are not supposed to pull the camp but they have to be close enough so you can bring the Lizard Elder there. Kill wraiths as they spawn and keep your Jitb for placing it while doing the redbuff. Don't use Smite. As you reach level 2 you have some decisions to make. Either get your Q and gank our invade or get your E and continue with wolves and bluebuff (use Smite now). As Shaco you can easily spend your first Blue for mid but it will lessen your gain of experience and you won't be able to gank as strongly as you could with having Blue. On top of this you will need to kill wraiths again after Blue in order to reach level 3 and getting your Q if you give the buff to your mid.

A second possible "route" is to stack your Jitb through a wall to where an enemy buff will spawn. You will steal the buff extremly fast this way.

Jungling (Advanced)

Know Shaco like yourself! Shaco stands and falls with how well you know what he can do and what he can't.

His ganks are insanely strong if done right, but they are at least as disabling for your own team if done wrong.

Aftre reaching level 2/3 you can either gank or invade.

Ganking

Reasons to gank asap (in priority top>bot):Lane in trouble; even if you know you won't get a kill, when you see a chance to give a Lane space to recover, go there and do your job as a jungler.

Enemy low life; if you see an enemy below 50% HP you will - especially early in the game - be able to nuke him off and give yourself a kill and Lane some free farm.

No wards; especially important for bot lane. You will get a sure kill if the enemy supporter is not warding and if one of the 2 bot laners crosses the middle of the lane. At least they will use their flash, which will give you either a free kill (if they don't play it very safe) or your bot lane free farm (if they do).

How to gank:

The most important thing is to know from where Shaco can reach which point. Basically, you can reach nearly every point with your Boots of Mobility without beeing seen even if the enemy wards a lot. After that be warned that enemies will see the smoke animation of your Deceive and Jack In The Box even if they can't see you.

The gank itself:Wait until all your spells are ready to be used (except your ultimate) and use one Jitb if there is a possibility that the enemy jungler or mid will try to join the party for getting vision and time via fear. Use your Deceive out of a brush or over a wall as a gapcloser. Get into position (behind the enemy), place a Jitb where the enemy will run, use Ignite if ready and use your automatic attacks to slow the enemy and kill him. Only use the knife to kill or close up after the enemy flashed or ghosted away.

Invade

Invading the enemy jungle is more risky than ganking a Lane because most Lanes won't fight back if you have the majority there. Junglers maybe will.

The most important factors for invading are:-The enemy jungler; Junglers like Amumu or Mundo will suffer a lot if being invaded because they have no sustain and no posibility to escape. But if you try to gank, for example, Olaf you will end up as the beginning of his feed.

-The enemy team behavior; first thing to happen is the enemy team warding from early on. This way, it will be hard to sneak into their jungle without being seen. Also, if they communicate well (premade/Team Draft) they will punish you if they can.

- Clairvoyance and map awareness; try to get vision and knowledge about the enemy jungler. Ask your support to often CV their jungle between wolves and Blue or Red and wraiths, so you can check when their buffs will respawn. And much more important, get vision with wards and your Jitb, this way it will be much safer.

How to invade

First ask yourself: What is my goal? You can either break the enemy jungler or try to support your own jungler or team.

Destroy the enemy jungler

If possible, the easiest way to make him suffer is killing him. Stack Jitb for example in the brush between wraiths and mid and wait until he runs into them (works great at level 2 if you only did Blue). If you have to fight a jungler like Olaf, who will kill you, or Nunu, who will run away, do their camps and leave one little monster to block respawn. Think about which buff this jungler needs most and try to steal it. If the enemy starts going into your jungle after you have stolen his neutrals get vision over your jungle and make your team punish him.

Supporting your team

First of all this will change your playstyle from the classic Shacos you may have seen a lot. This way you will be less aggressive and you will never get fed even if you do great.

Reasons: Less risk, support for your whole team. Another reason is if your team is able to push because they win their lane and the enemy jungler is not able to gank proper.

How to:

You won't get as much farm like you are used to because you won't gank that much and you will spend most of your buffs to your lanes. To work against this get Avarice Blade, [item=kage's lucky pick], [item=Heart of gold] and Philosopher's Stone. Which of these and in which order depends on you. I prefere to get at least 2 of them.

After you saved your income try to get as much vision as possible. You ask where? Everywhere! You have a great income, you are able to farm neutrals in the Jungle and you have 1min free wards.

Ward your buffs; don't make the enemy jungler steal your buffs. Check the respawn timer and place a Jitb 30 seconds before they spawn this should be enough.

Ward enemy buffs; don't make the enemy jungler get his own buffs because you have to spend as much buffs as possible to your lanes. If done right you can spend the enemy red to your top/bot and give yours to the left lane. Trust me noone wants to lane against Ashe with Red.

Ward your lanes; give your lanes vision so they can't get ganked. If possible countergank if you see the enemy jungler or mid try to gank.

Ward the enemy Jungle; if you got enough vision over the enemy jungler steal his neutrals and block the respawn like this he will get even less farm than you.

Item build (AD)

Pro: Versatile, strong early, sustain via lifesteal, high damage output for the full length of the battle, strong dragon control.

Yeah Shaco as a bruiser. If you build him some tanky he can be an awsome source of safe damage in the teamfight. This build is mainly focused on AD items with some tanky aspects.

This way, you have a good lifepool with some lifesteal expanding the pool even more. Your armor is mainly obtained via your basic armor and your runes, but this should be enough. The only weak point is your magic resistance, cause its won't rise, and you will usually have no runes for it. Because of this you can swap your Boots of Mobility into Mercury's Treads.

Theses builds will work extremely well against coordinated enemy teams which you can't fight without beeing tanky.

Attack speed/Anti Tank

Your ultimate clone deals 75% damage with automatic hits but not with on-hit effects such as [item=madred's bloodrazor]. So, with your ultimate and yourself, you will end up in a 5 attacks per second hybrid damage melee.

[item_icon=madred's bloodrazor] [item_icon=malady]

[item_icon=madred's bloodrazor] [item_icon=malady] These 3 don't need to be explained, I think. Some attack speed and some tankyness. Also [item=madred's bloodrazor] will grant you a lot of armor additional to the armor you already have.

You don't need additional attackspeed and much of your damag is magic, so why not.

You will need to keep close to your enemy to reach your full potential. On top of that your ultimate will even slow your enemies with this.

Full AD

Only for enemy teams which don't have oracle so it's more of a noob punish build.

Full damage,there's not much to say about it. Guardian Angel gives you the possibility to Deceive out of the fight after the revive.

To complete the classic AP build expand your lifepool and add a great slow to your Two-Shiv Poison.

Some items in depth

[item=wirggle's lantern]

As we will have Madred's Razors and Vampiric Scepter if we build AD it would be easy to upgrade them to Wriggle's Lantern . The advantage of the upgrade would be slightly more damage armor and lifesteal and the free ward. As we already have unlimited 1 minute free wards that's not that much of a deal. The extra damage lifesteal and armor is great and especially your dragon and buff control with this item is awsome. I get it in all but one situation, and this is if I go for upgrading Madred's Razors into [item=madred's bloodrazor] because in my opinion this will do it for dragon, too.

About this item for AD think about it as you reach endgame. It's bonus of AD is nearly as strong as The Bloodthirster and the additional AP for your E and W will hit your enemy at least a little. The most important about this is the additional ranged slow you get. So if you ended your build think about selling something for this if you feel like needing some additional AP, spellvamp and slow. For the core build it's to expensive in my opinion.

Final tips and thoughts

Targeting

As Shaco, try to go for squishy targets such as AD-carry or AP. I prefere to go for AP if I can reach him before he has used his combo. If the enemy has a strong bruiser or offtank, such as AP Amumu or farmed Nasus, get the attackspeed build and Deceive behind them. Use your ultimate before you attack them and watch their HP melt.

If you want to start picking up Shaco for your jungle needs, first go into a free game and practice a bit with this skill. Learn how much range it has and through which walls you can jump. And most importantly, learn how long the 3.5 seconds of invisibility really are. Most Shacos make the mistake of not taking their time while invisible. You can easily get a great positioning without even using half of its duration.

As said above, if you use it you are out of the map for about 0.1 second. If the game is going well, try to avoid some spells with it just for practice - even if you don't need to avoid them. For example, I had some really tricky ganks avoiding Morgana's Dark Binding once with Deceive and the second time with my ultimate.

Use it against skillshot heroes. Your ultimate is a great living shield, so you can avoid Brands Sear or even Caitlyns Ace in the Hole.

Use it right after Deceive. Your stealth won't break if you use this skill so you can confuse the enemy or even initiate a teamfight without any risk.

Use it for escapes. Your ult will follow you, if you don't tell him otherwise. Your enemies will attack the Shaco in front of the other one. Use their "skill". Let your clone run in front of you and I promise, most of your enemies will attack the clone if you did not overuse this trick the whole game. Or let your clone run one direction and run the other yourself. If you sometimes chose to take the more dangerous route yourself, they will maybe chase your clone.

Use your ultimate for diving. Your ultimate counts as a champion so it will get the whole attention of a tower if it attacks another champion. After your clone tanks you can easily Deceive in and kill. But take care because it will die fast.

Last but most important

Use your ultimate for dragon. As your ultimate will have full benefit out of Madred's Razors it will hit the dragon hard. Because it will die too fast in the early stages of the game in order to kill the dragon proper, use this strategy: Go to the dragon and place a Jitb where you would normally place a ward, it's for escaping. Pop your ultimate, attack the dragon yourself, place your clone behind it and let it attack it. About 15 to 20 seconds after you used your ultimate use Deceive. This way the dragon will attack your clone. This tactic works great, especially in early levels. You can do dragon at level 6 like this if you already have your Wriggle's Lantern, but I would recommend to get at least 2-3 .

Deceive and Jitb Map

Here is a Map for Deceive and Jitb location. These are not all locations but some you should know. The left side is for your Deceive jumps and the right is for Jitb, just mirror it for the other side

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/823/shacomap2.jpg/

Some notes for these Jitb gank locations.

1 If you know when the enemy jungler's buffs will respawn start stacking your boxes about 40 seconds before the buff actually spawns. If the enemy jungler runs into your boxes in the 20 seconds left for stacking Jitb, kill him. If not pull the buff into the boxes and steal it. Works great if the enemy Red is not covered at the beginning of the game.

2 The best two locations to kill the enemy jungler in early levels. As you see one if it is after the Red. If you decide to gank here let the enemy jungler do the buff for you before you kill him if possible. If you gank at wraiths you will have the time to do one of your buffs before if you hurry (All Jitb to the buff and eventualy smite)

3 Before killing the dragon place one box here. If the enemies come to kill you it will fear them away and give you some time to escape

Credits

I'm finally done. All in all, the guide is not finished cause I will need to read it again correct some things and make the two-shiv poison button run.

For all the people who have read this far, thanks for your attention and I hope it was useful for both advanced and new Shaco players.

Please comment and rate this guide. I now reached 200 views and did not get any comment or rating =/

Good night everyone and why so serious?

Planned:

Add the Jitb/Deceive map directly into the guide

Shaco in dominion

Shaco in TT

Shaco at Top

Shaco as support

Changelog

12.04.2012: Some corrections and added the topic "Deceive and Jitb Map"